Sir, - I enjoyed Robert O'Byrne's article on the Act of Union of 1801 (The Irish Times, January 2nd). He describes the subsequent decline of Dublin city and ascribes this to the Union as a direct effect. I should like to take issue with this thesis. It may be helpful to compare the status and prestige enjoyed by Dublin in the 18th century with that of another city. Edinburgh at this time possessed a similar if not equal status to Dublin, being reputed to be the "Modern Athens" of the north because of its number of beautiful buildings in classical form and also because of its burgeoning intellectual life and literary fame. The case of Edinburgh highlights the fact that to lose the status of a capital city (as Edinburgh did in 1707 with the first Act of Union) did not necessarily condemn such a city to a future of "provincial desuetude". There is therefore no necessary or inevitable link between the Act of Union of 1801 and Dublin's decline in the nineteenth-century.
Perhaps we must look to the parallel phenomenon of the Industrial Revolution for a more vital explanation. Dublin's medieval guild system did not make it an attractive location for the budding new entrepreneurs with radical ideas of industrial organisation. Belfast, then a modest location at the mouth of the River Lagan, was to prove a more fortunate virgin-site for such enterprises. - Yours, etc.,
Thomas P. Walsh, Faussagh Road, Cabra, Dublin 7.